Method of forming agglomerated bodies from ores.



iinrrnn s'ra'rns PATENT oriuon.

WILHELM SCHUMACHER, 0F OSNABR'U'CK. GERMANY, ASSIGNOR TO GENERAL BRIGHUETTING (30., OF NEW YORK. N. Y.. A CORPORATION OF MAINE.

METHOD OF FORMING AGGLOMERHATEID BODIES FROM ORES.

Rio-Drawing.

T 0 all whom it may concern Be it known that I, WILHELM Sono- MACHER, a subject of the Emperor of Germany, and resident of Osnabriick, 1n the Kingdom of Prussia and Empire of Germany, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Method of Form ng Agglomerated Bodies from Ores, of which the following is a specificat on.

My invention relates more articularly to the manufacture of briquets rom fine ores. The use of such ores, when subjected to treatment: in the usual manner in the blast furnace, entails a considerable loss, such loss being partially represented in what 18 called flue dust.

For many years the problem of a glomcrating flue dust and making it fit or use in a blast furnace has occupied manufacturers and inventors. Some adopted schemes known as nodulizing, others employed electric agglomerating processes, but I reached a, satisfactory solution of the problem by discovering that under certain conditions flue dust could be formed into relatively permanent briquets, I discovered that flue dust, if compressed into briquets in the presence of a catalyzing agent such as chlorid of lime or an equivalent thereofin fact, with flue dustfrom certain ores, great pressure in itself acts as a catalyzing means that the individual particles of flue dust would become firmly united so that the briquet could be placed in the blast furnace and its iron contents recovered. For the broad idea underlying this process, I obtained Letters Patent No. 933,270.

Upon further study and investigation of what actually takes place when flue dust briquets are formed according to my process, I discovered that one of the main effects of the catalytic process is to introduce into the composition of the flue dust additional molecules of oxygen. The action may be described as one which transforms the lower order of oxids -or oxidules of the flue dust into a higher order of oxids. When this condition of higher order of oxids has been created, the particles of flue dust will readily unite into a more or less solid coherent structure. The briqueting is also aided by the fact that flue dust contains more or less lime or silicates of lime which has cementing qualities. The catalyzing agent 1t- -be treated in a blast furnace.

Specification ot LettersPatentw Patented Dec, 15, 1914, Application filed April 30, 1912. MSerial No. 654,223.

self plays no direct observable part in the chemical transformation which takes place in the fflue dust, but it merely serves to evoke or bring about conditions where the flue dust will of its own constitution be brought to a condition where suitable briqueting is possible. I have also found that the fine iron ore used in the blast furnace contains, as ore, the higher order of oxide whereas the flue dust contains the lower order of oxids. The ore particles which are byreason of the conditions in the furnace transformed into the lower order of oxids arefejected by the air blast in the form of flue dust. The fine ore particles will not by themselves react readily with the catalyzing agent to form relatively permanent briquets but-zthe flue dust will, and this seems to be dueto the difference in the initial oxygen conditions of the two bodies. Based upon these discoveries and observations I have beenled to the conclusion that the production of flue dust in the relatively large quant tles in which it is now created is an uneconomical thing, for the iron ore is first placed nthe blast furnace, the flue dust is created out'of the iron ore and is then converted into br1quets which are again placed in the same blast furnace so that the same ore must go through the blast furnace twice. I

-rea's" oned, therefore, that if in some way I could so prepare the ore that it would be converted into iron, the very first time it was brought into the furnace, I would obviate a series of unnecessary operations and create a more economical process.

In the light of the facts which I have outlined above I have discovered that if I re:

it into a condition in which it is fit for briqueting according to my process as described for flue dust, by the employment of which it will become an ore body that can In order to effect this reduction of the ore, I may proceed as follows: I mix a quantit of lines, or fine ore,that being the material to which silicates Which, as the flue dust' and The reduced ore, which is ore in its natural conpable'of very great dition except for such reduction, as contradistinguished from fiue dust, which is ore that has passed through a blast furnace, is then subjected to the catalytic process which consists in the addition of a large quantity of water and an appropriate quantity of the catalytic substance in solution, such as, for example, magnesium sulfate; briquets are then formed by placing quantities of this material in a press-and the briquets, when finished, will be suitable for use in a blast furnace. If a press is used which is capressures, the pressure itself will operate as a catalytic agent and it will not be necessary to add to the reduced ore any additional agent, the pressure operating as such agent.

The reducing process may be carried out in any rotaryicalcining furnace, of which there are quite a number in existence, so

that my processdoes not require any' special apparatus.

The essence of this invention consequently resides in the employment of a specially prepared startmg material, that is, a reduced fine ore,

case the oxygen islime may be added as the basis for theformation of the briquets according to the catalytic process.

Having now described my lnvention, what I claim is:

.1. The process of preparingfine ore of the hematite or limonite group for use in a blast furnace, which consists in briqueting, in the and the briquet particles are caused to 00- here firmly as the result of the change from the lower to the higher oxid'condition of the iron ore.

2. The process of preparing fine ore of V the hematite or limonite group for use in a blast furnace, which consistsin briqueting in the presence of asuitable catalytic agent, ore which is in all respects a natural ore except that it'has been reduced in the presence of lime from its natural condition ofl-high oxidation to a lower state of oxidation, while preventing the formation of metallic iron, wherebythe reduced ore is oxidized to'a higher state of oxidation and the briquet particles are caused to cohere firmly as the result of the change from the lower to the higher oxid condition of the iron ore.

- In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

Witnesses:

LOUIS ALEXANDER, 7 JOHN, A. KEHLENBEGK- WILHELM SCHUMACHER. 

